Prime Minister Tony Abbott has asked Defence chiefs and senior government officials to prepare plans for Australia to join a possible multinational force to enter Ukraine to secure the crash site of MH17.

Hardening his language around the need for international intervention to ensure a genuine air crash investigation and recovery effort is conducted, Mr Abbott on Wednesday signalled he was willing to send more Australians to Ukraine to enforce the United Nations resolution that the almost 300 victims are recovered ''with immediate effect''.

''I've asked senior officials in a range of different agencies to prepare a range options and we will look at those options. It's a dangerous part of the world,'' Mr Abbott said.

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''The Australian government is looking at options for creating a safe environment for the forensic search of the area covered by the crash trail. We are talking to our partners in grief about more work at the United Nations and elsewhere to support the UN resolution.''

Mr Abbott would not be drawn on ''speculation'' that thousands of well-armed troops would be needed to secure the 50 square kilometre crash area, currently controlled by Russian-backed separatists suspected of launching the missile that shot down MH17.

But he insisted that the Australian-led United Nations resolution justified the need for a stronger, foreign-led effort to lock down the investigation site where up to 100 bodies are still to be recovered.

Paragraph 8 of the UN resolution demands the ''dignified, respectful, and professional treatment'' of the site and the recovery of the victims ''with immediate effect''. Mr Abbott described the recovery efforts and investigation so far as ''quite unprofessional''.

He staked the success of his government's response to the disaster on bringing the bodies of all victims home to Australia.

''We will bring all of them home. We must bring all of them home,'' he said.

''My fear is that unless we do more, unless we prepare for further possible measures, some of them will never come home and that would be completely unacceptable for bereaved families in Australia and right around the world.

''We just don't know how many bodies we have. It's quite possible that many bodies are still out there, in the open, in the European summer subject to interference and subject to the ravages of heat and animals.''

Mr Abbott said he had encountered strong support from fellow world leaders on the need for action and Australia's special envoy, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, has insisted on the need for a full and professional investigation.

''In his view, we need a large team conducting a forensic search. A proper scouring of the site to identify anything that may have been missed up until now. Because it is entirely possible, in his view, that there could be further human remains or further significant wreckage in the area. It might be the partial remains of a loved one, it might be a small but critical piece of a missile that is the key to the investigation,'' Mr Abbott said.

Air Chief Marshal Houston was on Wednesday in the Ukrainian government-controlled city of Kharkiv, where he was due to escort the bodies of Australian victims on to military aircraft, including a RAAF C17 Hercules for the flight to the Netherlands for forensic identification.

To the dismay of leaders around the world, the refrigerated train that left Donetsk carried just 200 bodies, meaning nearly 100 more could still be in the open and undiscovered.

The bodies were received ''with honour'' by Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove when they arrived in the Netherlands.

121 comments

I know it is only semantics, however wouldn't 'group' be a better word than 'force' in this situation ? Are we going in spoiling for a fight ?

Commenter

adam

Location

yarrawonga

Date and time

July 24, 2014, 7:13AM

It's a war zone you can't go in with fairy bread, red cordial and good intentions. I don't know about spoiling for a fight. With 30+ dead. I reckon we are in one already .

Commenter

Cwitty

Location

Sydney

Date and time

July 24, 2014, 8:17AM

So you believe it is OK for a UN group to bounce the Russians ?

Commenter

adam

Location

yarrawonga

Date and time

July 24, 2014, 8:32AM

Cwitty - you seem to be itching for more than 30+ dead. Wars have started with ideas like yours with millions dead!

Commenter

Darcy

Location

Sydney

Date and time

July 24, 2014, 9:11AM

The Malaysians have already gone in and found no more bodies, quietly getting on with the job.

Commenter

Amro

Date and time

July 24, 2014, 9:19AM

@Adam: "Are we going in spoiling for a fight ?"

Here we see the real agenda for the West. Troops are not necessary to "secure the site". What's going on is a battle between different forces in Ukraine about whether to look East or West. The current Ukrainian Government is a hard Right one, with actual Fascists as part of the coalition. It is being supported by the US and the EU. The rebels in the Donbas are a motley crew, whose leadership seems to be almost as far Right as the Kyiv regime, but who favour close links with Russia instead. They have a degree of popular support in their region, but not a majority. In this struggle, the West is looking for ways and means to intervene without too much opposition.

Let's take a deep breath and decide that sending troops, under whatever pretext, would be a very bad idea. It would be like putting out a fire by pouring petrol on it. How about we look for a peaceful solution to the MH17 affair?

Commenter

Greg Platt

Location

Brunswick

Date and time

July 24, 2014, 9:30AM

Force is completely semantically appropriate. For example, your work place may have a task force, but it doesn't mean that they have guns and fight.

Commenter

Brit

Location

Camp Hill

Date and time

July 24, 2014, 10:03AM

Amro - absolutely.This paper has been in delirious praise of Abbott's chest thumping - I had to double check I wasn't reading the tele or the unAustralian.Reading the international newspapers like NY Times, FT, WSJ - and our wonderful heroic superman doesn't get a mention.Its what you say. Getting the results is achieved in a quiet methodical way and for that we owe thanks to the Malaysians and Dutch.

Commenter

Tadd

Date and time

July 24, 2014, 10:10AM

Punching above our weight are we not ?

Commenter

helena

Date and time

July 24, 2014, 10:23AM

I know it's a horrible thought but maybe there are no more bodies, I would imagine that the missile exploded on impact and perhaps parts of the plane were incinerated by the explosion

24 Jul
Was it Russian madness or a bolshie two-fingered salute to the world by separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine? Which ever, the downing of two Ukrainian jet fighters on Wednesday underscores the challenges in Canberra’s push for an international force to secure the MH17 crash site.

23 Jul
The battle to bring to justice the perpetrators of the apparent missile attack on Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 will be extremely difficult, not least because Russia is in a position to thwart any attempt to bring it or its citizens before any international or domestic court, analysts said.

23 Jul
The mind-boggling stupidity of the armed masked men at the MH17 crash site, and their blatantly lying superiors, has changed the equation in Ukraine and Europe. The murder of 298 civilians by Russian-backed criminals is creating positives out of a disastrous negative.